The Undergrad
by thelasteddis
Summary: Just because he's going doesn't mean it isn't a stupid idea. College AU.


**Author's Notes: If you've been following me on livejournal, you might recognize this as the fic that won me the AU contest… that I then promptly abandoned. I feel bad about that, I swear. But I've had a second chapter stewing for a while now. I just want to add a little more content before I post it. For the record, it introduces both the characters people wanted me to introduce; Minister of War and Pol. It'll be up, both here and on LJ, soon!**

"You guys aren't serious, are you?"

It had been the first time that Gen had spoken in over an hour. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he glanced over the top of his book (biological classification; exams were coming up) at the pair on the other side of the tiny room.

"We are," the tallest of the group said, looking arrogantly across at Gen. He seemed about to continue, but instead sniffed and said to his friend, "Don't talk to him, Sophos. I've learned that over the past few months."

Gen snorted inelegantly. Whatever Ambiades said in front of his one-man freshman fan club, he had done anything but ignore Gen since they had been assigned to share a dorm room. Gen hadn't really given him much of a choice; it was hard to ignore someone who spread your entire wardrobe across the campus, or (in what was possibly the greatest moment of Eugenides' college career) moved your bed to the middle of the football field during the night, while you were in it. Oh yes. Ambiades had been lucky that Sophos had started school after that event. Where on earth would he have gotten his necessary supply of adoring glances?

Meanwhile, Sophos had restarted the conversation. "But why would you want to go to Attolia? I mean, I get that he said he'll give you extra credit and all but—"

"I haven't gotten to the best part yet, stupid. Magus thinks that the monarchy of Attolia might just be holding documents written," Ambiades paused for effect, and to look over at his roommate to be sure he was listening (which Gen wasn't, not at all), "by King Arthur himself."

Sophos gasped. "Whoa!"

Ambiades nodded, pleased with himself. Gen couldn't stand it anymore. He threw aside the book, and all vestiges of a front that he wasn't listening in. "Wait. You're saying that you and a crackpot professor—"

"Professor Magus is not a crackpot, he is a scholar of world-wide—"

"He's an idiot! I took his Ancient Government seminar, he spent the whole time prattling on about Arthurian legends, _not_ what I signed up for when I took the course—"

"What the hell did you expect?"

"An actual Ancient Government, for one, something that's not a _myth_. Whatever. So you and oh-so-wonderful Professor Magus are going to a tiny country in—where? Europe?"

Ambiades smiled. "Oh, you've never heard of Attolia? It's in Eurasia, near Turkey. One of the few absolute monarchies left."

" 'Oh, you've never heard of Attolia' from the guy who can't tell a daikon from a takima bush?"

"Isn't a daikon a radish?" Sophos asked timidly.

Eugenides addressed his roommate. "Nice, Ambiades, your freshman pal is smarter than you are."

"So I had skipped that class, big deal!" Ambiades shouted, red in the face.

He had hit a nerve. Gen grinned and got up, throwing his book into a canvas bag and pulling on his yellow letterman jacket. "Really, though, I think the best part is that he's doing it all for Professor Sounis, who thinks that if such a major scholarly discovery is made by his department the Legal Studies professor will go out with him. It's sad."

On that note, he left, seeking a quieter place to study. Perhaps the roof?

o0o

It was a week later when Professor Helen Eddis found her much younger cousin apparently attempting to commit creative suicide outside her second-story window. It had snowed heavily in the night, and Gen had buried himself in the drifts on the sloped shingle roof. He seemed to have been lying there for over an hour, as the still-falling flakes had covered all of him except for his nose and a few patches of shiny yellow jacket.

"Gen, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Can you do nothing indoors? It's slippery out there."

"I'm failing history."

That hadn't been what she was expecting. In trouble for one of his infamous pranks, she could deal with. Girl trouble, she could deal with (actually, she would be overjoyed to deal with it—she had been trying to set Gen up with her favorite students ever since he started college). But her kid cousin, a genius in his own right, failing one of his favorite subjects? That was weird.

"Would you talk to me about it inside?"

Like a particularly wet and snowy squirrel, Eugenides climbed in the window. He shed the soaked letterman jacket and threw himself onto the floor at the foot of Helen's desk. Helen waited to him to start talking, but he didn't—she was just beginning to glance at the papers that still needed grading when he began.

"I just got my midterm results back. I failed."

"Why?"

Eugenides got up and started pacing, reminding Helen a little of a bear at the zoo. A small bear. A small, wet bear. "Because I hate the teacher. I hate him. Sounis is even worse than that lacky of his, Magus, and—"

"Professor Sounis, Gen, and Professor Magus."

Gen stopped for a minute, and stared at her. "What?"

"Professional camaraderie. I've got to stick up for them." _Whatever_ she thought of them.

"Ok. Professor Sounis, if that's what you want. He doesn't give us all the information, is hopelessly negative about our ability to pass the class, and spends so much time talking about that that he fails to actually teach us anything. He's too busy being up on his hoity-toity throne of academic success that he can't be bothered."

Helen sighed. She didn't like Sounis either; he spent altogether too much time trying to engage her in conversations about history's effect on modern law at faculty functions for her to enjoy his company. "But that's no reason for you to fail, Gen. Is there any way you can make up the work?"

"There's that goose chase of Professor Magus', " Gen laughed.

"There you are."

"There I… oh, damn it. You really think…?"

"If it's the only way you'll make up the class?" Helen lifted a rough curl out of her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. "Yeah." She returned to her papers, lifting the first off the top and reaching for a red pen. "Gen, have you met Christy Agape? You'd like her."

"No, I haven't. Later, ok?" With that, Gen swung out the door and into the hallway beyond.


End file.
